Good evening.

Welcome to another edition of Inside the Cover.

Boone by Rober Morgan was copyrighted in 2007.

I finished my copy on May 31st, 2024.

I chose to feature this book on our program tonight for two principal reasons.

First, I want to remind you about the hidden treasures that you might find o your very own library shelves.

I have had this boo in my library for several years, but for some reaso I had not taken time to read it.

Shame on me.

My second reaso is that this is a well-written and well-researched book about a true American icon, and an early hero figure of our country.

Daniel Boone was born in 1732 and died in 1820.

Morgan makes clear that Boone lived a remarkable and remarkably American life.

It is now time to go inside the cover.

I was not previously aware of Robert Morgan, but my research shows that he is an academic scholar and a prolific writer.

And by the way, he is not to be confuse with another author, Robert J. Morgan.

Our Robert Morgan is an American poet, short story writer, and novelist.

He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1965 as an English major.

He was awarded the MFA degree from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro in 1968.

He has taught at Cornell University since 1971, and he was named a full professor in 1984.

His published works include 15 books of poetry, nine volumes of fiction, and he is the author of three nonfiction books, including Boone.

Morgan's biography is a comprehensive and complete study of the life of Daniel Boone.

There is a chronology of Boone's life, and there is a Boone family tree, an they were a very prolific group.

The book has maps illustrations, and photographs, and I also enjoyed Morgan's multiple inserts on historical topics such as Freemasonry and the American Revolution and Kentucky, regulators, domestic arts and people of the forest.

The book follows Boone's early days as he traveled with his parents from the peaceful countryside of Olney, Pennsylvania to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and then the wilder Yadkin Valley of North Carolina.

Later, Boone helped settle what became the state of Kentucky before ultimately ending up in Missouri, where he spent his final days on Earth.

He also traveled to the Rocky Mountains as an older man.

According to Morgan, Daniel Boone did most of the things for which he is remembered between about 1770 and 1782.

He lived until 1820 and was a legend for the last 36 years of his life.

But according to Morgan, the legend is based almost entirely on the events of those 11 or 12 years.

I had not realized it, but Boone was a contemporary of George Washington.

Boone was only two years younger.

Also Franklin Jefferson, Adams and Hamilton.

Lewis and Clark.

Boone played a significant role in the Revolutionary War, fighting against the British and their Native American allies, and he certainly assisted mightily with the expansion of the young new country.

According to Morgan the young Republic needed Boone, the icon of curiosity, courage, character and wonder.

Like all men, Boone was a combination of talents accomplishments, and weaknesses, but his best talents were of a high order and his genius recognize by virtually all who knew him.

As Morgan notes, The Story of Boone is the story of America.

Tonight's book has been Boone by Robert Morgan.

If you like American history, tales of discovery, nation building descriptions of flora and fauna with a little bit of hero worship, I think you'll enjoy and appreciate this book as much as I do.